Are you KIDDING ME??

Let me preface this by saying I have only recently begun using DS. Ergo, there are MANY files in my history t hat I never downloaded, because I didn't need the DS files. I'm now trying to retrieve them so I have DS textures for as many products as possible. Up until today, while I was working, I'd reset a bunch of downloads, then start downloading 3-4 at a time. I'd go work for a while, then come back and repeat this. This is necessary since Daz STOPPED their account burn service, which would have saved me EONS of time downloading files for the 3600 items in my history. ANYWAY...

Today, I was HORRIFIED to discover that if I am downloading a SINGLE file, I can do NOTHING else on DAZ's site. Share CG is this way. I tolerate it there because, you know, everything there is free. Here at DAZ??? NO FREAKING WAY.

While downloading a file, I could not...
*Download another file
*Open the forums in another tab or window
*open the store in another tab or window

No. No, no NO!!! If this is a permanent change, and not a temporary thing they're doing to change code or whatever, I'm DONE here. I cannot tolerate ONE MORE STUPID THING PERTAINING TO THIS WEBSITE!

And before you ask, NO, it is not my browser. It did this to me in both Firefox and Internet Exploder.

There may be a glitch in their system (hopefully temporary) or a bandwidth issue with your ISP.

I've done dozens of resets, myself, since this latest chnage to the site--yes, there are some annoying issues they need to work out--but so far, I've not been limited to doing just one action on DAZ. I've been able to downlod multiple items in my pages.

I had at 6 downloads running in parallel this morning, no issue, and I've had up to a dozen or more in the recent past. And I was reading two different forum tabs in parallel with that, one of which was off working out the list of new posts.

It may not be your browser, but it may have been your ISP, any other ISP between you and DAZ, or it may have been a temporary restriction while some large batch process runs on the DAZ servers.

I had at 6 downloads running in parallel this morning, no issue, and I've had up to a dozen or more in the recent past. And I was reading two different forum tabs in parallel with that, one of which was off working out the list of new posts.

It may not be your browser, but it may have been your ISP, any other ISP between you and DAZ, or it may have been a temporary restriction while some large batch process runs on the DAZ servers.

That may be. I WAS successfully downloading several files at once until about 10:30 in the morning. Then, nada. It stopped. I was still able to download multiple files at once from renderosity, so I don't think it's entirely my ISP. I am willing to believe that there was some "bad chemistry" between DAZ and the ISP. I'm our network administrator, so I know it isn't a LAN issue. If this continues, I'll try at home. I'm ready to pull my hair out. Sadly, I'm about halfway through an enormous pile of already reset downloads. I think Taozen’s downloader will downlaod ALL the files in the available downloads. I'll need to wait for them all to expire before I download them that way.

Well, that helps, thank goodness. I'm still annoyed an baffled by the behavior, though.

I think they are fixing something right now; I noticed something familiar from the past happening, so I'm going to assume there's some code fixing and live-testing going on.

I understand that these things are ticking you off, I don't like it either when things don't work, 'cause I'm a sysadmin at heart, and things need to work [string of Finnish expletives deleted]. However, I also grok it that this problem is right now complicated. And having worked on similar things, plus tech support, I'm willing to give them some slack, since Taozen's tools are really that good -- I may end up using them even after the official installer comes around, unless it can utterly beat them in functionality.

You can get a CSV list out of history tool, it will double-check your cart for duplicates (within reason), it can reset downloads, search your history... what's there not to love? Then, downloader. Leave it chugging at the background and you don't need to pay attention to that screen 'till it is done.

I understand that these things are ticking you off, I don't like it either when things don't work, 'cause I'm a sysadmin at heart, and things need to work [string of Finnish expletives deleted]. However, I also grok it that this problem is right now complicated. And having worked on similar things, plus tech support, I'm willing to give them some slack, since Taozen's tools are really that good

I think I'd be more willing to just accept these kinds of things if SO MANY other things weren't also wrong. I honestly do not understand why a website with so many unfinished issues was opened to the public. Many of these major issues should have been done BEFORE the release. That way, only bug fixes would need addressing after public release. The new site should have at least included the same functionality as the old one. Waiting longer to release would have avoided the issues that are turning so many of us away.

I am reasonably certain that it was bug tested, as people involved in testing have told us about their involvement. However, something happened between...

1) moving from test environment to live production
2) specifically and/or partially related to scaling of operations (on database, code and services level)

The latter can be a killer. (I'm personally experiencing its bite, as my wishlist is pretty solidly unviewable due to its sheer size -- 2,200 items, which was incredibly unwieldy even in the old system. The system timeouts before it can read off all the items on my wishlist, but if it were limited to 10/25/50 items per page, I probably would see it.)

Going back is not exactly an option at this stage, and based on what people directly involved with maintenance of the old shop said, it wasn't even on 17th of May: that the code was unsustainable; it is interesting but I had more problems with the old system (other than my current wishlist problem; I was smart and made a copy of it for myself before the store was closed for switchover, so I'm not suffering that badly) than I have with the new one. Right now it is "we have to deal with it, and make it work, because old system is not an option anymore". Yes, maybe something else than Magento would have been better, but frankly, I and most other people on this forum do not know the ins and outs of the decision which made them pick it.

And anyone saying that this is the worst switchover in history needs to read this before calling the shots. ;)

I'm not saying it's the worst web screw-up ever. But it still isn't pretty. I'm also NOT suggesting that we go back to the old system. I've done web updates (on a much smaller scale) enough to know that once you implement, rolling back is nightmarish. I have no problem with the new interface, except that it doesn't work as it SHOULD. It works as it was DESIGNED, not as it SHOULD. I'm fine with bugs, actually. I can forgive those, because THOSE are a natural part of upgrades. I'm simply not okay with jumping into this platform before key user functionality was implemented. Seems that DAZ, like the bank in your link, was more concerned with a deadline than in serving its customers. Surely, they could have limped by with the old site for a few more months, rather than making their customers suffer the sheer inconvenience of the new one. It's poor business strategy. This is a web-based sales organization. When you have dozens of customers voicing their shock and distress, and their money is no longer rushing in, then the decision making process needs to be evaluated.

If I had offered my customers this kind of transition, I would have been fired.

We are aware that over the last couple of days we have been testing some site updates. We realize that there may be some strange issues so please be aware. The good news is we are seeing some improvements each day as we move forward on the fixes.

Page load times are improving,
Check out processes are getting better, less issues with adding to cart and checking out.
We have isolated most of the download issues to Internet Explorer 8, the web team is looking into a fix for this.
Search by Release Date, Shop by Vendor etc are working as we all now expect.

Search by Release Date, Shop by Vendor etc are working as we all now expect.

What about the scrambling of display order whenever we change from view-15-per-page to view-60-per-page? As far as I can tell there's no way to be certain something that would display on a second page (while viewing the first page) won't jump to the first page while viewing the second page.

Does anybody at DAZ recognize there is a download/find item/reset item problem? Is anybody working on it?

A while back in July or so DAZ had some of their $1.99 club items for $.99. In one order I bought 50 of them.

I didn't get to download them all. Now I have to go back and try do this one item at a time, often guessing at what the first name of the item is. If I guess wrong, after scrolling through dozens of back-forward pages only 2 at a time, then I have to start the whole process over again. Just for one item.

Most recently I spent a half hour and didn't find the item I started looking for, though I did find one other item on the list. A half hour. 30 minutes. For 50 items that will add up to 25 hours just finding the items.

Since in this case all the items happene3d to be from one order, I logged into customer service, gave them the order number and asked if they just do a blanket reset on that one order. They said they didn't have the capacity to do that even themselves.

For the member above with 2200 items, they must to go through more than 50 pages, incrementing two pages at a time just to get at their best guess for the first letter of the item, as DAz archives it.

Now, with luck, we're someplace in the listing of M's. For the first item we're looking for. If we got the name exactly correct.

And for "T" should we start from the back or the front? The number of pages links to the frequency of the first letter in the items you've purchased, not balanced by the alphabet.

I currently have a trouble ticket open on this. And, while I'm going to try Touzen out of sheer desperation, and glad that it exists and that there are forum members who know about it, that is not a DAZ solution. In fact, the Touzen alpha program says it expires in a few weeks.

I really don't like to have to download a third party software when I feel I should be dealing on private purchases in my private account directly with DAZ.

I would just like to hear from someone at the project level at DAZ that (a) they recognize there is a problem and (b) what they're doing and when they plan to have it fixed.

Search by Release Date, Shop by Vendor etc are working as we all now expect.

What about the scrambling of display order whenever we change from view-15-per-page to view-60-per-page? As far as I can tell there's no way to be certain something that would display on a second page (while viewing the first page) won't jump to the first page while viewing the second page.

That 15 items per page is small issue, but a pretty repetitive time waster for me. EVERY. SINGLE. GOSH-DARN TIME you look at EVERY. SINGLE. GOSH-DARN product page you have to spend 10-15 seconds to change that little button. And if you had something in a search order it vanishes. Now, while that maximum item search button is not as irritating as the old Microsoft hourglass used to be, it's getting up there whenever I log into Daz.

I have my browser set to delete all settings when I exit (privacy and security).

In the old Daz, prior to this system, there was a preferences setting that I did once, and that Daz remembered when I logged in. It was much easier to shop and search in that system.

In the scheme of things, again, that is a small problem. But it does get me pretty angry at times when I just want to find something, or quickly see if there is something I want then get out. In my mind I feel that DAZ sure must like making their customers spend time clicking on things rather than spending time shopping and using products.

By the way, I'd like to see maximum item pages of 100 and 250 (say, for browsing Platinum Club items), not just limited to a low number like 60 items per page.

(For those of you counting, that's 4 less clicks on a 250 page preview compared to the maximum Daz allows now and 16 less clicks than the current DAZ default. How long does a click and reload take? 3 seconds? 10 seconds? It adds up).

I didn’t get to download them all. Now I have to go back and try do this one item at a time, often guessing at what the first name of the item is.

Since in this case all the items happene3d to be from one order

The Order Conformation you received from DAZ in your email when you made your purchase will give you a list with the names of all the items.

For the member above with 2200 items, they must to go through more than 50 pages, incrementing two pages at a time just to get at their best guess for the first letter of the item, as DAZ archives it.

Why 2 pages at a time? You can jump ahead 5 pages by clicking on the 5, or by clicking on the three dots it will take you 10 pages ahead. I only have 1659 items but I can get to "M" in less than 4 seconds with 2 clicks, and I can find any specific item in my Itemized Order History in less than 20 seconds.

Of course if you're on Windows, Taozen's history manager takes all the pain out of it.

By the way, yeah, trying to find things by alphabetical order is a freakin' nuisance. Back in the day of paper bound dictionaries, encyclopedias, and telephone books, 4 words I dreaded were "Go look it up."

Cold Rake, your comments help somewhat. I respect the number of items you have as I would think you should see the problem, too, and you don't. But I am still missing something.

First, my three dots take me ahead 7 pages, not 10. A weird number that's difficult to picture in your head until you actually calculate what it's doing. That's probably why I didn't pay attention to it as a practical advance device until you told me to look at it.

Second, I don't see any mechanism to go 5 pages ahead. Clicking on the only "5" I see gets me nothing additional.

Searching my emails first for the order that has the proper names of what I bought is something I hadn't thought of. It's an added layer of complication, but it would work okay in this particular instance when it is all in one order. I could have two windows open and cross reference them.

Jaiman, your suggestion to look that the top line bar for the page number is excellent. And I like the links you add at the bottom of your page.

The best solution given here, though, was Taozen.

I did the Taozen program and that was the charm. It saves your order to your hard disk in a comma delimited spreadsheet format that most spreadsheets, including Excel can use. If he put in the artist's name and the price, I wouldn't have to keep track of any of this myself; I'd just update his work and save it to disk.

But Taozen is really just a web scraping program. If they can do it, then Daz should be able to at least get an alphabet up there pretty easily which would simply things by two orders of magnitude. Then it would work for their Mac users, too. And including a search/sort by Order number button should be doable since Taozen has that in their program and it must be part of each item data. Similar for Date.

I feel I shouldn't have to deal with a third party when I want to access private account information with Daz, no matter how good that third party may be. That's just a bit creepy to me.

And, Jaiman, yes back in the day. I guess I still come from the day when Video was wireless, ubiquitous and free, and Voice was tethered to the home by cable.
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Jaiman, this is off topic,but fun, relating to"Looking it up" and "back in the day". (Bear with me site admins). I recently looked up "Moon" and "Mars" in my grandparent's 1957 (one year pre-Sputnik) Encyclopedia. Here is a direct quote from the last paragraph in the section that describes the planet Mars. Again, 1957. Not that long ago:

MARS

"there seems some observational evidence that vegetation exists; at least, certain phenomena can be most simply explained in this way. Hence, without venturing a positive opinion, there are grounds for this belief, and if vegetation exists, then low forms of reptile or other animal life might be inferred. But the supposition that higher forms exist, such as mammals, stretches one's imagination beyond any bounds which science can substantiate. The attempts at planetary intercommunication, even if there were beings to receive our messages, are not as yet subjects for serious consideration. The ideas advanced for travel from planet to planet are simply wildly imaginary and take no proper account of perfectly well known facts and natural laws. Thus radio messages to Mars, much less reaching the planet by rocket ships or similar devices, are at present wholly beyond the limits of serious scientific study." ~ Charles P. Olivier, Director Flower & Cook Astronomical Observatories, University of Pennsylvania, 1956.

Back in the day.

When he wrote it he wasn't wrong, you know. Just expressing the extent of human experience at the time. When we see a 1957 Chevy at an auto show, it seems old, but not that old. Maybe something we'd like to own and drive. Sometimes we don't realize or appreciate how far we've come.

Maybe that's why 3D graphics are fun, too. We get to live our "wildly imaginary" ideas, with the ability to deliberately, "take no proper account of perfectly well known facts and natural laws."

And, Jaiman, yes back in the day. I guess I still come from the day when Video was wireless, ubiquitous and free, and Voice was tethered to the home by cable.

LOL!

Hey, I just realized kids can't ditch each other, anymore! "Siri, find Joe" "Joe is hiding around that corner."

I remember 3 channels (and PBS), and catching distant UHF channels, on Spring nights, before we got our own local UHF (and after, because theirs had more money). Static was annoying, but not as irritating a digital-over-the-air, stuttering when the signal drops out, or satellite blipping out repeatedly during a storm, or cable just going black for as long as it wants to.

MARS Wow, that's incredible. I remember in elementary school, mid-60's, when all those fun Mars stories had long been debunked, and then they brought the hammer down on fields of vegetation. I thought it was figured out from bigger telescopes... but they'd had giant observatories for...

I've still got the old '63 Worldbook set, boxed up, for the sake of collecting dust. (No hyperlinked text, you know).

Holy Cow! Same stuff with more detail!

[Wikipedia break]

Mariner 4, 1964... That's earlier than I was thinking, but the Apollo program was going. Mars, though... Imagine what it took to calculate that trajectory on their rows of computers. It went past though, just a few pix, that was frustrating.

The attempts at planetary intercommunication, even if there were beings to receive our messages, are not as yet subjects for serious consideration. The ideas advanced for travel from planet to planet are simply wildly imaginary and take no proper account of perfectly well known facts and natural laws. Thus radio messages to Mars, much less reaching the planet by rocket ships or similar devices, are at present wholly beyond the limits of serious scientific study.”

ROTFLOL! And 7 years later, a tiny little satellite was broadcasting images back to Earth. One pixel at a time.

When he wrote it he wasn't wrong, you know. Just expressing the extent of human experience at the time.

Yep, for the radio signals, even a laser spreads out, in space, fairly quickly over a good distance, but he was magnitudes of order off. A big enough receiving dish, focusing the weak signal...

And, yeah, the vegetation hypothesis was perfectly reasonable. Massive dust storm because of the thin atmosphere - no wonder that didn't occur to them. Sending people is still a challenge, of course... but a lot more manageable one.

When we see a 1957 Chevy at an auto show, it seems old, but not that old. Maybe something we'd like to own and drive. Sometimes we don't realize or appreciate how far we've come.

Good point. Some of that happened so fast, some so slowly. But its a whole different world.

I used to kinda marvel at how it had changed from the horse-drawn, telegraph, the-town-has-gas-streetlamps world my grandparents were born into. My parents as kids in family's first Model T, the first telephones. But they were really impressed by it.

And now I know how they felt.

Maybe that's why 3D graphics are fun, too. We get to live our "wildly imaginary" ideas, with the ability to deliberately, "take no proper account of perfectly well known facts and natural laws."

That's my thinking, it's fun to unleash. From the preposterous to the strictly plausible, you can render things nobody's ever seen before.
Or things only you've seen before...

I'd used to read a lot of sci fi, and run across things that I'd visualize, and wish I could set it down for eyes to see.(Now my eyes protest when I read very long, and the glasses that they give me....). And I remember spare time... and sleep... oh right... I haven't had enough of that...

Taozen, the program I used, is that your work? Very nice. I want to thank you for providing it. It was a life-saver. Or at least a real aggravation and time saver.

I can't believe that Daz doesn't even recognize how bad what they have is.

Out of curiosity, what prompted you to make that program and then provide it for free? Is there a business model (driving traffic, name recognition) , or just community generosity for something you did for yourself?

The attempts at planetary intercommunication, even if there were beings to receive our messages, are not as yet subjects for serious consideration. The ideas advanced for travel from planet to planet are simply wildly imaginary and take no proper account of perfectly well known facts and natural laws. Thus radio messages to Mars, much less reaching the planet by rocket ships or similar devices, are at present wholly beyond the limits of serious scientific study.”

ROTFLOL! And 7 years later, a tiny little satellite was broadcasting images back to Earth. One pixel at a time.

Thanks Jaiman, I enjoyed your comments.

From the 1957 comments to now where it's possible for an X-Prize. Just think: an "X" prize for Mars, where they set a course from one area of the planet to another. You launch your vehicle and race car and get it to a pre-destined start line. A moderator sets the start and the finish. Any country or indiviual can participate. Start! Then you control it from earth and see who gets to the finish first! And maybe along the way you're supposed to collect Y number of samples no more than Z distance apart!

In theory we can actually do this now - build a race track on another planet!